blog.bioethics.net

The Wakefield Scandal Thickens...

When I wrote a week ago about Andrew Wakefield, I approached it from a research ethics perspective: about data falsification, the retraction of an article, the colleagues who didn't stand by him on his Lancet paper, etc etc....but as the world continues to talk about this researcher who, amazingly, continues to stand his ground regarding his more than debunked theory about how the MMR vaccine causes autism--I have grown increasingly upset.

Because as long as Andrew Wakefield, the father of the antivaccine movement in the last decade, clings to his theory, so will the parents and families of children with autism. As well as the other middle to upper-middle class parents who don't want to get their children vaccinated which has significant public health consequences. Wakefield has done his damage.

As a graduate student, as a recent Newsweek article explains, he and his institution, saw fit to hold a press conference lauding the data about 8 of 12 children in the study who following the MMR vaccine had inflammation of the gut, but shockingly 9 of those children also had autism. What was not disclosed until later was that another researcher who was doing genetic analyses of the tissue of the intestines of these same children found no evidence of measles from the MMR or presence of the virus anywhere in the gut at all. Yet, Wakefield stuck to his correlative theory without fail.

And the rest, as they say, was history.

But it gets even worse, not only was Wakefield a data falsifier and someone who clung to an unproven theory, it actually has come to light that he was a bought man. The patients who were "enrolled" in his study were actually not just random children who appeared on the doorstep of Royal Free Hospital but were clients of an attorney working against a vaccine company alleging that vaccines caused autism. Most already know that the children already had autism when they came into the study, but what was news to me at least was that Wakefield had received 55,000 pounds from something called Britain's Legal Aid Board in the previous year (big money if you are a graduate student) which supported research related to lawsuits. Wonder if that kind of money can influence one's outcomes? That answer would appear to be obvious now.

To this day, Wakefield denies a conflict of interest, says Newsweek. Who wants to take bets that this guy never took a research ethics class? I'm betting the guy can't spell conflict of interest.

Wakefield is quoted in Newsweek as saying, "At the time the children were referred to the Royal Free, none of the parents were involved in litigation, though some went on to do so." Certainly his data, falsified and exaggerated and geared toward litigable ends, certainly helped them go into court to argue that vaccines caused autism, however. This morality-free zone in which Wakefield appears to be living is simply astonishing to me.

Most irritatingly, now it would appear that Dr. Wakefield thinks it is acceptable to provide a revisionist account of his research and his claims and to back away from his research and to set up shop in the United States. According to the Times UK Online regarding his theory, for which he is under a disciplinary inquiry by the General Medical Council in Britain he says: "It's under investigation. I would absolutely agree it's not proved. Nor have I ever claimed that it's proved." Oddly, publishing a research paper in the Lancet would suggest that some kind of theory is being put forth, wouldn't one thing? Moreover, Wakefield says he has "no regrets" about the study he performed back in 1998. Clearly because it met its desired objective, which has only later become clear, which was a crusade against vaccines--not a search for understanding regarding autism.

Certainly for a person who is now running the Texas non-profit, Thoughtful House, it would appear that this researcher is something significantly less than thoughtful about the implications of his research, his misdeeds and his role in the autism community.